Crow Feathers
by Solitaryrose
Summary: An AU medieval Ruka x Juri fic (although it may not look it from some parts in the later chapters ^o^) : Count Ruka is out hunting one day when he shoots down what he believes to be a bird... but turns out to be something much different... a fallen angel.
1. Majestic

Crow Feathers  
Majestic  
  
Grim and gaunt in his rich attire of navy and silver, Count Ruka pulled the bowstring on his state-of-the-art crossbow taut and aimed carefully at the deer. It was a beautiful, sweet thing, but hunts were truly not meant for admiring the lovely game. There were animals to be killed and dragged home. Feasts. Food.  
  
True to his aim, the barbed arrow that Ruka fired flew straight to his tawny-colored target. With one arrow it was brought down. Ruka and his two comrades rushed over to it hurriedly, their capes flowing in the fall morning's early breeze. As Ruka bent over to inspect the fallen doe, a wave of relief swept over him. The doe was a strong, fat one that had filled its stomach aplenty with fresh grass and plants. It would mean good meat for the harsh winter that was soon to come.   
  
"Tie it up, would you, Hiroki?" Ruka inquired of the youth next to him eagerly awaiting his orders. "And make sure to bind its legs tight. It truly would not spell good for Manor Tsuchiya if we were to lose our catch again. Starving is never something to look forward to." Hiroki bowed meekly and rushed forward with a long length of rope to do the task.   
  
"Ruka, the clouds overhead are tumultuous. We'd best be getting back, should we not?" Hideaki, the somberly clad middle-aged man riding on the steed behind Ruka noted. "Come on, Hiroki. Let us be on our way, Ruka."   
  
"Aye, just a bit more hunting, Hideaki... I'm praying to bring down a falcon for a hunting bird..." Ruka paid no heed to Hideaki nor the anxiously waiting Hiroki. He merely glanced around the skies, watching for a dark, soaring bird.   
  
"All right, Cousin... but if the rain drenches you and ruins your best hunting suit, it is no fault of mine!" Hideaki spurred his steed towards Manor Tsuchiya. Hiroki, after giving Ruka one last unsure glance, followed suit.   
  
"I have a name, Hideaki..." Ruka sighed.   
  
After watching the gray sky for a long period of time, Ruka was disappointed to see that he was only able to bring down a fledgling falcon and a hare. He had indeed shot the wing of a full-grown eagle, but that shot had caused the infuriated creature to turn upon him and attempt an attack. Luckily Ruka had fired... and then he killed it. Hunting birds were certainly of no use... dead. Ruka was growing restless. He needed a sturdy, strong hunting bird...  
  
And then, something caught his eye. It was a large bird, plummeting down from the skies. It may have been dropping at an alarming rate, but Ruka was almost certain that it wasn't dead. The bird had large, beautiful ebony wings of the deepest jet black. It was definitely no bird that he had seen before... except for the resemblance to a crow. The wings reminded him of a crow's. Perhaps a crow wouldn't be too awful, he thought just before firing an arrow at the bird, just so it would not escape from him if it were still able to move around freely after its fall.   
  
The arrow flew to the area where the left wing connected with the shoulderblade. Ruka showed no signs of triumph, only a stony face as he awaited the landing of the creature. However, as it got closer, Ruka realized that it was not an oversized crow, but a beautiful, majestic woman. A beautiful, majestic woman with black wings.   
  
A painful thump signaled the impact of the fall. Ruka carefully walked forward. The woman appeared to be a fallen angel of sorts. She was lying on her back upon the ground, unconscious. Ruka could not see what color her eyes were, but what he did see stunned him. What a beautiful angel she was! A strong, regal nose appeared right above a small, sublime mouth and a pointed chin. The woman's pale complexion - between peach and ivory - only added to the overall loveliness. Thick locks of orange curled hair, each curl being extremely tightly curled and long so that a lock only sported one large curl, adorned the head. The garment that the angel was wearing was a dove-colored robe, simple and plain, save for a plait of gold that served as a tight girdle around her slender waist. She had a good figure, as well. Ruka was astonished. However did he come by an angel?  
  
As rain began to pour from the heavens, Ruka decided that he could not just leave the stunning young woman in the forest during a downpour. Wrapping his large cloak around her to shield her from the damp, he hoisted her onto his stallion and, after giving it a kick, got it running towards Manor Tsuchiya.   
  
*****  
  
Ruka had secretly slipped inside his own manor, making sure that nobody saw him. It may have seemed silly to sneak into one's own home, but if he had allowed himself to be seen with a creature of the supernatural, it would have resulted in a fiasco. Quietly he carried the unconscious fallen angel into his bedchamber and laid her on the bed. Then he hurriedly ran out into his private parlor and immediately locked the door of his room from outside so that, if the woman were to awake, she could not get out.  
  
"Thank God I was not seen..." Ruka murmured as he sunk down into a lavishly carved ebony bench. Weariness crept over him, and before he knew it, his eyelids fluttered shut and he fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.  
  
*****  
  
"Lady Shiori! I command you; Count Ruka is not available at the moment! Please wait until he returns!! Shiori!!!!" Hideaki sharply hollered after a young, maroon-haired woman, who was not paying any attention at all to him. "Lady Shiori! You have no business with him! Stay out of his chambers, would you? I command you! You are not allowed in there!" However, Shiori still paid him no heed and continued on her way up the stone spiral staircase.   
  
"They're an odd color, these stones... tinted blue..." Shiori remarked to herself, not hearing a word of Hideaki's rather loud speech. "Ruka... You shall be mine... and I'll do everything I can to make it happen..."   
  
Finally, Hideaki gave up altogether, threw up his hands in frustration, and turned back towards the way he came, muttering, "Insane whore... you'll get your due when Count Ruka catches you in his bed..." Shiori didn't know it, but Hideaki knew much more about her than she thought he did.   
  
"My brother's ruined because of you, Shiori... you and your deceitful charms..." Hideaki clenched his fists and cursed furiously. "Oh, yes... you shall ruin yourself one day, Shiori... you're going to get what you deserve..."  
  
*****  
  
Ruka stirred. There seemed to be a light, gentle tapping on the outermost door of his chambers. When he stood up to stretch his body, stiff after falling asleep on a wooden bench, his back cracked.   
  
"I shall never sleep on a wooden seat again," he groaned as he walked over to his door and yanked it open. In the doorway stood a teal-haired little girl. Ruka raised his eyebrows, and, after a moment's pause, inquired, "Kaori, what are you doing here?"  
  
"There's someone who wants to see you, Sir," Kaori whispered quietly after curtseying deeply. Ruka, interested to see who it was now, followed the tiny lass down the marvelously carpeted hall.   
  
"Well? I don't see anybody," Ruka remarked once Kaori stopped at a tapestry. "If I am to meet with someone, I expect him to be on time." Kaori placed an index finger to her lips and spoke in such a quiet voice that Ruka could hear Hideaki's indistinct yelling from downstairs better than he could hear her. "Count Ruka, you must be quiet, or else someone shall hear you." Ruka knew better than to rebuke the servant girl for shushing him; Kaori was quite wise and prudent for her age of seven winters, soon to be eight.   
  
With curiosity that was often not in him, Ruka watched as Kaori slightly slid the tapestry aside to reveal a well-concealed stone door. She fumbled with a tiny brass key that Ruka did not see at first, and then slid it into a tiny keyhole near the bottom right-hand corner of the door. Keyholes are not meant to be at the bottom of doors, Ruka thought skeptically, but... that is clever; hiding the keyhole all the way down there. Once she had turned the key in the keyhole and then yanked it out again, she pushed it open without a sound. Motioning for Ruka to follow her, she crept forward, glancing all about her for anyone who might be coming that way.   
  
As soon as the pair was inside the odd, torch-lit stone chamber, Kaori shoved the door shut. Ruka sensibly pulled a torch from a tiny niche on the wall. Kaori guided him forward without the use of any light. Impressed, Ruka wondered how many times the little girl had been there as she led him through the winding tunnels that contained a damp, musty suffocating smell.   
  
Near the end of their walk was a circular chamber. Piled neatly on the right side of the queer chamber were a large number of instruments that Ruka could not make out distinctly. Kaori, with a sad look on her face was about to bring forward one of the dim objects when she suddenly stopped, fear showing on her pallid face. Count Ruka, too, was frozen. He held up the torch towards Kaori to see what had frightened her so. Once he saw the object of Kaori's fear, he felt his jaw drop in a shocked gape. But it wasn't from fear. It was from astonishment.   
  
"Good day, Count," a woman said, standing straight and proud, her icy emerald eyes settling on Ruka's handsome visage. Her white robe sagged coldly on her shoulders as she crossed her arms. "Please explain how I came to be here."  
  
*****  
  
Shiori was running now; she was almost at the Count's chambers. The outermost door seemed to be unlocked, and slightly ajar as well. She pushed it open after making sure that there was nobody about to see her barging in on the Count. Looking around for Count Ruka as she explored his chambers, she was almost about to leave and find him somewhere else, for his bedroom chamber was locked. Then a shiny key on the ground near an ebony bench caught her eye.   
  
She smiled to herself gloatingly. Taking the silver key and turning it in the keyhole of the door, a smile appeared on her face. Got you now, she thought, smug.   
  
"Count Ruka...!" She cried, ready to make her famous "I-love-you-so-much" speech, but stopped abruptly when she saw that the room was empty. A startled gasp came from her throat as she saw a scattering of black crow feathers on Ruka's bed, along with a large navy cloak.  
  
"What is going on...?" She hissed with eyes widened in bewilderment.  
  
Author's note: How is it?   



	2. Enigmatic

Crow Feathers  
Enigmatic  
  
Ruka was speechless. He didn't believe in pathetic notions such as "passing through walls" or other psychic abilities that were only present in one in a generation. For minutes he and the little girl standing near him stared, astonished, at the cold figure who was watching them in return.   
  
"How...??" For once in his life, Ruka didn't have a clever comment to say. Neither did Kaori, but then again, she was a servant. Servants only spoke when spoken to. Ruka tried again.   
  
"However did you get from my chamber to... down here?"  
  
"Apparently, your bed seems to be connected to the ground. The canopy posts are rooted to the stone. What odd masons you hired when this Manor was built, fixing oaks in the floor. I doubt it was by accident." The woman replied, with a sort of superior, knowing smirk on her face. Upset by the smirk, Ruka suddenly scowled and asked, "What is it you know that I don't?" From childhood, he and Hideaki had prowled the manor from the highest towers to the deepest cellars, and he had never, not once, come by this odd place. So how was it that, on her first time in Manor Tsuchiya, the enigmatic female wound up where he had never been before?  
  
"Didn't you hear me? I said that your bed was attached to the ground."  
  
"What in the heavens does that have to do with anything?"  
  
She only folded her arms and laughed, "Don't you have political enemies?"  
  
Ruka thought about that question for a bit. Then an idea struck his head. However, before he could open his mouth and answer, Kaori, forgotten a while before, started to cry. She collapsed onto her knees, her thickly plaited hair falling across her shoulders, and placed her face in her hands. She cried as if she was ashamed of her actions, of her life, and of every single thing in the world.   
  
"I... I..." As she attempted to get words out, she abruptly choked and then wailed even harder, the tears welling up in her cupped palms and then spilling over them, onto the dark, cold stone floor. "Don't kill me just yet, S-S-Sir!! I-I c-c-can explain everything... everything."  
  
In the matter of a mere day, Ruka was more confused than he had ever been all the days of his life tied together. He could only listen.  
  
*****  
  
"AAAARRRGGGHHH!!!!!" Shiori stomped her foot angrily and pounded her fist on the nearest table with amazing force. "This is... this is... DAMN IT!!!! CURSE IT!!!" She could find no adjective suitable for her momentary thoughts. Suddenly, she took her fury out on a poor, unsuspecting page passing by as she hollered her lungs out at the boy, screaming nonsense about how fate didn't love her, how she had done nothing to get on God's bad side (which was quite untrue, considering all the things that she had done in her wicked, scheming existence), and about other things that weren't worth mentioning, nor appropriate either, due to the profane language that flew out of her mouth at incredible speeds.  
  
"Lady Shiori! What are you doing in the Count's chambers? And whatever are you doing to Mitsuru?" Hideaki stormed over to Shiori, his face as purple as a ripe plum. "You are forbidden treat Mitsuru like that, even if he is just a page!"  
  
"As a matter of fact, Baron Hideaki, Ruka personally invited me to his chambers for a slight conversation. I was upset by the fact that Mitsuru so impudently interrupted things. Adding to that, I was also displeased with the fact that Count Ruka was unable to attend to me while he was away with... other things." Shiori said all of this smoothly, as if she were a distressed maiden and Ruka was a careless count who could care less about the world.  
  
Hideaki, however, did not heed Shiori's false words. He folded his arms and muttered, "Shiori, your lies won't work on me. I know you, you traitorous woman! I know what it is that you do!"  
  
"Hmph," Shiori scoffed, with her nose in the air as she picked up her skirts dandily and stormed away, leaving Mitsuru staring after her wide-eyed.   
  
"Baron, Sir, if I may ask..." Mitsuru whispered anxiously, turning to face Hideaki.  
  
"Don't ask, Mitsuru. It's really none of your business. She's not worth your time." With that, Hideaki walked away. Mitsuru followed suit, and quickly closed the Count's door. He sorely hoped that he wouldn't run into the maroon-haired woman again. She was quite frightening.  
  
*****  
  
"Ah... I see now, Kaori..." Ruka uttered, his eyes narrowed, his arms crossed. The woman next to him watched the still-whimpering Kaori's frame shake uncontrollably.   
  
"F-Father only told me the d-d-day he passed away, Count Ruka... I-I couldn't tell you earlier; I apologize deeply! P-Please kill me quickly!" Kaori's hair was slightly tangled from all the salty tears that had seeped into them, intertwining the strands and giving the hair a messy, pathetic look.   
  
Ruka stared down at her, unforgiving, and just as he opened his mouth, the beautiful woman spoke up rather abruptly. Her emerald-teal eyes gleamed as she spoke, her words crisp and well chosen.  
  
"Count, you are angry towards her because of her father's treachery towards you and your family. However, she is merely a servant. Can you really be so cruel as to condemn her to a fate of death? She is also only a child. She did not know better," the woman spoke, but she never quite got to finish, because Ruka broke in angrily.  
  
"First of all, I had never said that she was to be executed. I am not as low as that. Second of all, who are you to contradict me, when I do not even know who you are? And finally, please wait to speak until after I am finished." Furious, Ruka slitted his deep marine eyes and gave off a glare.  
  
Speechless for a few moments, the woman eventually sputtered, "Why, aren't you haughty, Count! You could have given me the chance to complete my words! Instead, you give me an arrogant face and lash out without thought! Heaven has improved my mind; I see that Earth has not improved yours, the mind of a man. Up in Heaven there are no 'classes' or social status! Only the seraphs and those who hold a seat of honor are the high angels; they make all the decisions. They command respect, but neither act foolishly, nor imprudently. But men, I cannot say..."   
  
Quickly Ruka realized the mistake of his rude, hasty reply that had instinctively taken over his good thought. He quickly recomposed himself, and responded, "I apologize, wise lady. If I may be forgiven for my words..."   
  
"Oh, you're a sly one, are you not? But don't worry yourself about showing grave respect to an angel; choose your words carefully when speaking to a woman. I am an angel no longer."  
  
"Then, pray, good lady, what may your name be?"  
  
She paused temporarily at his request. After some hesitation, she said, in a deep, low voice, "My name? It once was, and still is, Arisugawa Juri."   
  
"Welcome, Lady Juri, to Manor Tsuchiya." Ruka smirked, holding Juri's hand up to his lips as a gesture of greeting.  
  
At that, Juri's faced remained stony and impassive, but her eyes laughed.  
  
Author's note: Whoa... talk about a writer's block! I was so caught up on some of my other fics and a ton of schoolwork (aren't we all? ^o^) that I couldn't work on this for a while... I'm truly sorry, for those of you who were waiting for chapter 2. (a very little amount) I also tried to make it remotely practical, after reading Dianna Silver's long review... I tried making it better, but eh, I guess it didn't turn out all that well! Anyway, please review after you read. * cough no flames cough* ^_^ Okay, please take time to read and review some of my other fics too! (if it's not too much trouble)   
  
Oh yeah! I forgot to mention that I will explain the situation with Kaori, Ruka, and the odd chamber in chapter 3. I apologize for the slow pace of this story; I guess it's just the way that I set things up... -_-  



End file.
